Moving onwards

They say time flies when you’re having fun.  This is so true and with Christmas and New Year celebrations over, those of us leaving in January began the countdown to heading home, amazed at how fast the time has gone.  There is always plenty of work to be getting on with which keeps us busy, and despite my best intentions to take a couple of days off I still found myself out catching snow petrels on Boxing day and visiting the penguins at Gourlay on New Year’s day!  I wouldn’t have had it any other way however.

From the start of January, part of my work is to monitor the annual build-up of seals at Signy.  An area around the research station is checked for seals regularly and the numbers present recorded.  We get some lovely weddell seals who always manage to stay clean and beautiful.  

The majority of our visitors however are young male fur seals and elephant seals who turn up to find somewhere to haul out for a while to moult their fur, lounge around and have a practice at play-fighting with each other.  The elephant seals are particularly vocal and stinky and resemble large slugs!

At Gourlay the chinstrap chicks started hatching just after Christmas.  Meanwhile, the Adelie and Gentoo chicks which are about a month older, are already getting quite big.  They are now very comical and run around in little gangs chasing their parents to beg for food.

At this time of year I also spend quite a bit of time analysing penguin diet samples to see what they have been eating, and measuring the size of the krill which forms the basis of their diet in a good season.  The diet samples look a little like a seafood dinner!

We have had some interesting creatures turn up at Signy this year (both alive and dead).  This fin whale died by the shore and has been providing dinner for the giant petrels ever since.

This leucistic Adelie penguin turned up at North Point (it has a genetic condition that means it is lacking in the dark pigment melanin in the feathers). 

This large crustacean (Glyptonotus antarcticus) was found (and released) alive in the bay

 

This Giant Antarctic Octopus was found at Gourlay (dead).  Note the 30cm ruler for scale- this is a big beastie!

On 7^th January, my season came to an end.  I was picked up by one of the Antarctic cruise ships, the MS Fram.  It dropped off another scientist (Derren) who I am sharing the season with this year.  He will continue to monitor the wildlife to the end of the season.  On the day, cruise passengers from the ship came ashore to visit Signy and learn about how a small research station works.  Afterwards, Richard (another visiting scientist) and I joined the ship and we set sail southwards (yes, I know that's the wrong direction for home!), heading for the Antarctic Peninsula.  Here's the ship arriving at Signy. 

I have never travelled via cruise ship before so the experience is all new to me. We have had an incredible few days as guest scientists onboard the ship and I will write another post about the trip soon.  As I write this, we are still onboard, now almost back into South America, due into Punta Arenas in Chile in 2 days time.  From there I will set off on the long flight home.